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DaaS/VDI Strategy 101: Your Ultimate Guide To Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 

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DaaS/VDI Strategy 101: Your Ultimate Guide To Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 

By Chis Newell
Founder & President

Empowering a highly effective workforce starts with keeping your employees connected and ensuring that they have all the tools, resources, and data they need at their fingertips. With the right virtual desktop or desktop as a service infrastructure, you can keep users connected while giving them the flexibility they need to work from anywhere without compromising on security or workstation performance. However, deploying a successful virtual desktop infrastructure or desktop as a service solution starts with formulating the right VDI strategy and choosing the right DaaS/VDI provider for your needs.  

What Is DaaS/VDI? 

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud computing offering that enables businesses to deliver cloud-hosted virtual desktops to any device, from anywhere. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is cloud-based technology that hosts desktop environments from a centralized server. It allows you to run desktop workloads on centralized servers while providing a secure way to make all the resources your employees need available in one place.  

Why Should Companies And Growing Businesses Invest In DaaS/VDI? 

DaaS/ VDI strategy brings the advantages of traditional computing models to the cloud, allowing your workforce to do more. The benefits of DaaS/VDI include: 

Data Security 

Authorized users from authorized devices can only access virtual desktop environments. Moreover, it keeps all data within the server, so you never have to worry about data disclosure. 

Reduced Costs 

VDI strategies eliminate the need for you to purchase hardware for your employees while eliminating the need for driver compatibility with specific software and services. Paired with a broad range of features such as simplified hardware maintenance, reduced downtimes, and high system performance, it offers limitless cost-saving possibilities.  

Resource Pooling 

VDI solutions allow authorized users to tap into the enterprise computer system from any approved device. This gives them access to company servers, apps, files, and services they need to get work done in one place, allowing business continuity.  

Data-Driven Insights 

With various tracking tools being offered by many VDI providers, you can monitor your virtual desktop environments’ user experience, security, and performance. As a result, you will mitigate all issues impacting users to enhance the productivity of your workforce. 

How Does DaaS/VDI Simplify Desktop Management And Keep Operation Systems Stable? 

With all virtual desktop environments connected to a single server, centralized patching, application installations, desktop redesigns and more can be carried out without the need for users to log off, eliminating maintenance downtimes. You can also leverage templates and cloning administrators to quickly establish departmental virtual machine environments and deploy new user desktops on demand.  

VDI strategies also integrate desktop and server management platforms, streamlining coordination between server and desktop support groups. Moreover, they enable the centralized execution of user sessions across a farm of servers while expanding the number of applications deployed on a server-based computing model. 

However, every application deployed in a shared operating system has the potential to conflict with other programs. While no multi-user platform is immune to failure, VDI minimizes this problem by isolating every virtual desktop from any system malfunctions caused by other users. However, it all depends on the VDI provider you choose.  

Is DaaS/VDI Suitable For You? 

Everyday use cases driving the mass adoption of VDI include: 

  • Outsourcing development while staying in control of all your data and source codes. 
  • Upgrading operating systems while eliminating the need to replace outdated PC models.  
  • Unifying server and desktop processes to create robust IT infrastructure and streamline data backup and recovery.  
  • Keeping CPU at peak performance by deploying demanding programs to a virtual desktop environment. 
  • Migrating from legacy desktop computing to utility computing to minimize costs. 
  • Preparing for business continuity in case of a pandemic by making it possible to power a remote workforce. 

However, choosing the right VDI strategy and VDI provider for your business can be daunting. At Technology Navigation, we help businesses considering VDI solutions for their companies to formulate a strategy that’s best suited to their needs. Connect with us today to find out more.   

The lessons that covid left us  

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The lessons that covid left us  

By Chis Newell
Founder & President

When Covid-19 hit the US in March 2020, most of us entered a new reality. Being in IT, my team has not only had to find a way to support our external clients but also support their internal clients as well. Here are some of the takeaways and learning moments we have experienced: 

Cloud and Digital Transformation is Beneficial  

Now more than ever clients are moving their services to cloud technologies. With a vast number of employees working remotely or in a hybrid environment, utilizing cloud technologies has become massively important, even more so than it already was. Any way you slice it, today’s employees are not working in a traditional business environment.  

Because of this, UCaaS, CCaaS, O365, Cloud Compute and Storage, Virtual Desktop and Virtual Collaboration services are being migrated to at a rate we have not seen before. Existing cloud projects that were slated for deployment in late 2020 / 2021 have been fast tracked to completion in weeks, not months. 

Reducing IT Costs  

Over the past couple of years, a lot of our clients have been tasked with reducing costs as much as possible. This has taken on many different forms, including re-contracting existing services in the effort to reduce costs, or cancelling portions of services.  

Some clients have asked our team to look at existing services with all suppliers and find ways to aggregate services to a single provider to take advantage of economies of scale. In some cases, clients request to cancel services altogether or re-purpose assets to be more effective. Whatever the strategy, many businesses remain in a mode of scaling back, while still needing to increase performance.  

The Importance of Redundancy and Resiliency  

With most all employees working remotely, if there are services needed at the offices redundancies at your offices for VPN or SD-WAN have become more vital than ever. With a single threaded connection, employees are destined to do their laundry rather than work when there is a blip on the network.  

Security is Being Reshaped 

Most of our clients have seemingly strong security measures for their offices. With a remote workforce, there is the question of how to secure this environment.  Enter Virtual Desktop, Zero Trust and SASE methodologies to help secure and address new security concerns.  

At Technology Navigation, we have been working diligently with our clients to work through their own challenges during the pandemic and subsequent fallout. If you think you are on your own island through this new reality you are not.